8/12/2002 @ 12:00PM

Top-Earning Dead Celebrities

One might not think of death as an optimal career move, but for some celebrities, crossing over to the far side doesn’t hurt their income in the least.

Take
Tupac
Shakur
Tupac Shakur
. The infamous rapper was gunned down in Las Vegas six years ago at age 25, but last year he sold 2.7 million albums and earned an estimated $7 million. In fact, Shakur–who had recorded some 200 unreleased tracks at the time of his murder–has put out more albums dead than alive.

But 25 years after his death,
Elvis
Presley
Elvis Presley
remains the undisputed king of the crypt. A funked-up version of “A Little Less Conversation” was featured in a World Cup television ad in June and spent four weeks as the No. 1 single in the U.K. The single netted the estate about $4 million and helped offset dipping attendance at Graceland. All together Elvis earned around $37 million, easily besting Peanuts cartoonist
Charles
Schulz
Charles Schulz
($28 million) for the top spot on our list.

To compile our definitive list, four reporters looked at dozens of estates and spent countless hours interviewing surviving family members, lawyers and estate administrators. Drawing on Forbes’ 18 years of wealth-estimating experience, our reporters calculated pretax earnings to the estate from licensing agreements, and book and record sales, for the 12-month period from June 2001 to June 2002. In cases where the income to the estate was spilt among several entities–as with
Lucille
Ball
Lucille Ball
, who splits her earnings from I Love Lucy with
Desi
Arnaz
Desi Arnaz
and
CBS
–we considered only that which the actual ranked celebrity would have earned.

It’s been a good year for the dead. Last year, in order to make our list, dead celebrities had to earn a minimum of $3 million in income, and the average earning was nearly $11.5 million. This year, the poorest of the bunch–
Robert
Ludlum
Robert Ludlum
and
Jerry
Garcia
Jerry Garcia
–each made $5 million, and the average shot up to $15 million.

James
Dean
James Dean
, who died in 1955 and went on to become an American icon, barely made it to the list last year, with a modest income of $3 million. This year, he got the squeeze from mega-earner newcomers such as
Dale
Earnhardt
Dale Earnhardt
, whose estate pulled in about $20 million, and Robert Ludlum, who earned about $5 million with the release of a new novel, Sigma Protocol, and the film adaptation of his 22-year-old novel, The Bourne Identity.

Even though Dean got kicked off the list, he’s in good company: Pop artists
Andy
Warhol
Andy Warhol
and
Keith
Haring
Keith Haring
also got the boot.

Twenty-five years after his death, Elvis is still the King. A funked-up version of “A Little Less Conversation” was introduced in a
Nike
World Cup ad and hit No. 1 in the U.K. soon after–a spot it held for four weeks. Not bad for a song which was quickly forgotten after it came out in 1969. The single helped net the estate about $4 million and could not have come at a better time: Graceland, which has seen attendance dip in recent years, is looking to attract a younger crowd. Next up: A new four-CD box set, Elvis: Today, Tomorrow, & Forever, with previously unreleased tracks and an album of Elvis’ 30 number one hits, will hit shelves in September. –Davide Dukcevich

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

Charlie Brown failed to get the attention of the little red-headed girl, but he certainly succeeded in gaining the attention of the rest of the world. Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” strip is still carried in nearly all of the 2,600 newspapers that carried it at the time of Schulz’s death in 2000. The franchise has sales of nearly $1.2 billion–and it’s growing. Using the same team of animators–minus Schulz–ABC rolled out a new Peanuts Valentine’s Day special this spring and Peanuts-themed retail stores are opening around the world. All this is on top of continuing revenue from classics like A Charlie Brown Christmas. The Schulz estate gets about 50% of all licensing and merchandising profits in addition to a slice of licensing revenue, bringing the cartoonist’s annual income to about $28 million. –Betsy Schiffman

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

Turns out “Strawberry Fields” is actually filled with diamonds. Lennon makes more than his fellow Beatle–and crypt newcomer–George Harrison primarily due to publishing revenue from his prolific song-writing partnership with
Paul
McCartney
Paul McCartney
. Plus Lennon’s legacy has proven to be lucrative not just because of his music, but also thanks to his artwork. The estate licenses signed prints of Lennon’s work, and there’s even a line of kids’ toys and clothes called Real Love, based on drawings that John did to help son Sean learn to read. Not one to be idle, even while dead, John’s estate launched a new line of sterling silver jewelry in partnership with jewelry manufacturers JewelAmerica this past spring. –Penelope Patsuris

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

The only athlete on our list, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt’s income hasn’t slowed a bit since he was killed in a crash during the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Grief-stricken Earnhardt fans have snapped up everything from license-plate frames and scale replicas of his famous number three Goodwrench car to
Nokia
cell phones emblazoned in his honor. Earnhardt’s son,
Dale Earnhardt
Jr.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
, is carrying on Dad’s legacy with a vengeance. The 27-year-old driver was the first rookie ever to win the Winston All-Star race and his No. 8 Budweiser team has raked in nearly $9 million in winnings in two full years of Winston Cup competition. –Penelope Patsuris

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

Ten years after his death, the beloved children’s book author has gone multimedia. Dr. Seuss books are still selling by the millions, the blockbuster movie, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, has been made and another, The Cat in the Hat, is in the works. There’s also a theme park at Universal Studios celebrating the characters Dr. Seuss created and Web sites selling Dr. Seuss merchandise. –Lisa DiCarlo

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

He was the youngest and most quiet Beatle, but there’s nothing modest about the profits Harrison is pulling in posthumously. Since his death from lung cancer last November, Harrison’s solo albums have been outselling fellow dead Beatle John Lennon. Like Lennon, Harrison gets a 25% cut on the 5 million Beatles albums sold last year, and collects additional writer’s royalties on the hits that he personally penned, including “Here Comes the Sun,” and “Something.” And there’s more where that came from: Harrison’s attorney says that there are still more unreleased Harrison songs in the archive. –Penelope Patsuris

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

J.R.R. Tolkien, the Oxford don and writer of the fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, was rumored to have practically given away the movie rights to his books for a song. But, in fact, the Tolkien estate receives a small percent of the film’s profits. That looks like a good deal, especially since The Fellowship of the Ring, which cost about $100 million to make, has generated more than $300 million in domestic ticket sales since it was released in December of 2001. As an added benefit, the movie brought Tolkien’s books back to the bestseller list. The estate gets about half of all profits on book sales. There is also income from the Fellowship of the Ring DVD, action figures, tarot decks and paint sets. And the future is even brighter for Tolkien: The second movie in the trilogy, The Two Towers, will hit the big screen this Christmas and is rumored to be even better than the first movie. Not a bad living for a man who has been dead for nearly 30 years. –Betsy Schiffman

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

Marley is still the world’s favorite Rastafarian. A “One Love” compilation album was released in May of last year and Marley continuously dominates the Reggae album charts. In addition to selling more than 1.4 million records, Marley won a lifetime achievement Grammy and, perhaps more importantly, a VH1 Behind the Music. And for fans whose cravings don’t stop at his music, bobmarley.com has a shop that peddles Spliff Shorts and Jammin’ Sneakers. The Marley family gets up and stands up for its licensing rights. All told, the estate made about $10 million in the past 12 months. –Davide Dukcevich

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

The wind cries Mary–and fans still scream for Jimi. Hendrix’s sexy guitar riffs and soulful vocals have become the template sound for high-energy TV commercials, earning the estate millions.
Audi
even claims that its TT sports car was “designed under the influence of Jimi Hendrix.” In addition to the lucrative licensing deals, Hendrix’s music continues to sell. In total Hendrix sold more than 700,000 albums last year. Jimi’s father, James “Al” Hendrix, died in April, but Al’s adopted stepdaughter, Janie, still holds the reins of the estate–angering her stepbrother, Leon, who feels he has been cut out. –Davide Dukcevich

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

Rapper Tupac Shakur, who was gunned down in Las Vegas six years ago at the tender age of 25, left behind a huge pile of unreleased material. His mother,
Afeni
Shakur
Afeni Shakur
, sued Tupac’s label to get ownership of the music and prevailed. Five Tupac Shakur albums have been released since his death (he only released four while alive), bringing in about $40 million to his estate in the past four years. More albums are planned–and there is a thirst for them: Shakur sold 2.7 million records last year. An MTV documentary is also in the works as is a
Quincy
Jones
Quincy Jones
-backed Hollywood feature. –Davide Dukcevich

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

Marilyn once said she was not interested in money–she only wanted to be wonderful. How surprised she would be that people are still shelling out big bucks for everything Marilyn. All told, the estate earned $7 million from Marilyn Monroe merchandise, movies and licensing fees for her image. On top of that, another $460,000 was made from auctioning off seemingly endless memorabilia, including a five-page handwritten note Marilyn wrote when she was 16. –Lisa DiCarlo

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

The thing about the Grateful Dead and the late Jerry Garcia is that a 60-year-old grandmother is just as likely to be a Deadhead as her grandchildren. Thus the broad demographic and enduring appeal of Jerry, now dead seven years. His widow,
Deborah Koons
Garcia
Deborah Koons Garcia
, runs jerrygarcia.com, where fans can buy everything from $7 Jerry dolls to a $3,000 boxed set of prints of Jerry’s artwork. Between merchandise, music sales and licensing, Jerry pulled down an estimated $5 million. That buys a lot of tie-dyes and Birkenstocks. –Lisa DiCarlo

Forbes Richest Deceased Celebrities

It was a good year for Robert Ludlum, another newcomer to our list. The thriller writer, who died in March of 2001, has bequeathed his readers another thrill from beyond the grave: the film adaptation of his 22-year-old novel, The Bourne Identity. The movie did well at the box office, pulling in $100 million–and did even better from the estate’s point of view, bringing the book back to the bestseller list. In October 2001, Ludlum posthumously published The Sigma Protocol, the movie rights of which were sold for about $1 million; and The Cassandra Compact (written with the help of another writer) was released in May 2001. Despite the death of the author, the Ludlum machine is still running. Expect a few more books to be released, while his backlist (translated into 32 languages) continues to generate significant royalties. –Betsy Schiffman